Last week, I wrote about how I’ve failed at marketing my own business, even though I run a marketing business.

This week I got down to walking the walk of my talk… in other words, I started marketing my business as I would do for a client. I’m sharing everything I learned along the way in the hopes that someone out there can learn a thing or two along the way.

I should preface all of this with saying I declared a few goals for the next 90 days. I specifically wanted a certain number of sales calls/proposals and a certain number of clients. I’m not quite ready to give away the numbers just yet. However I have to note that as I went into creating and executing this strategy, I kept those numbers at top of mind.

Once I figured out my goals, I looked at where I am right now and what I need to put into place to get there. Right now I already have several warm leads who in the conversion stage thatI would like to convert into clients through sales calls and proposals over the next few weeks. I also know after that I’m in need of some newer, colder leads that I can move along in my pipeline. Right now I’ve got to be working in those first two stages.

Right now my goal is to connect with newer leads to keep filling my pipeline and also ensure I’ve got systems in place to move warm leads into sales calls.

My business attract new leads in three main ways: LinkedIn, blogs and at in-person networking. Therefore I knew I needed these tasks to be covered on a weekly, possibly, daily basis.

At the beginning of the week, I outlined four blogs for my website, found at least one networking event a week and blocked out 15 minutes a day to find relevant marketing information and 15 minutes to spend on LinkedIn sharing content and connecting with others. It’s important to note here, I took time to dream up content that interests my audience, and to find networking events and LinkedIn groups that have my target audience in them. With these activities, it’s more than just completing, it’s actually putting in the effort. I can already tell I’m going to have to work in more ways to promote my blogs and provide more value through LinkedIn but those are problems to be solved next week.

The next piece of the puzzle was to figure out why not all of my warm leads convert into sales calls and proposals. I know that there’s something missing in my follow up/conversion stage. For this step, I had to look at my past leads that never ended up converting and analyze what went wrong. I went through several emails and notes about calls to break down the process. I realized I don’t a strong enough follow up process for either online or offline leads.

To solve that problem, I’ve implemented a new CRM system and added two additional touch points and I’m in the midst of creating a new lead magnet and follow up email sequence to drive more email subscribers and book more consultations from my emails. I’m also reworking the entire way I present proposals. I’m curious as to how these activities will work moving forward and hopefully by the end of this month, I’ll have data on what’s working.

And that was how I spent my first week implementing my marketing plan! Looking back, it doesn’t look like too much but the amount of clarity I have is freeing. I know where my problems are and I know how to solve them. Moving forward, I have a really clear idea of what I need to be doing every single day and week, which I’m hoping will help me set a really consistent schedule.

My first learning lesson is that all of this is still really mental right now. It took a surprising amount of willpower to sit down and look at everything going on in my marketing and sales funnel. I pushed my business activities back to the end of the day a few days this week when really, I should be tackling it first thing in the morning. One day, I didn't work on my business at all so I've started doing accountability with one of my mastermind partners at the end of every day. My new mantra has become "If I don't spend time on my business, I will never be able to support my clients because I won't have a business!" Because honestly... it's the truth and not just for me, but for every business!